» Victim support package announced, but the contents are very limited

2013/03/18

In March 15th, Reconstruction Agency announced the comprehensive measures promoting to support  for those who are affected by the nuclear disaster including voluntary evacuees called “The Nuclear disaster victims support program package”.

The TEPCO Nuclear Disaster Victims’ Support Act was established in June 2012 for support of both the residents in Fukushima as well as evacuees from Fukushima. However, the basic policy was delayed to be formulated and the government has not able to launch any support projects based on the Act. There is urgency and necessity to implement this Act as soon as possible. Reconstruction Agency has put together support programs based on the Act as a support package and will deploy a comprehensive measures without waiting for formulating basic policy. The package includes (1) Revival of healthy children, (2) Care for health and mind for children, (3) Improvement of living environment and child rearing.
The “Revival of healthy children” project includes all-weather sports facilities, installation of large children’ play equipment and the development of nature experience program. The “improvement of living environment and child rearing” includes the development of public rental housing in the central part of Fukushima and free highway for mothers-children refugees.

However, some contents of the packages are already budgeted in the second supplementary budget in 2011, and others are included in the other project called ” Fukushima Furusato revitalizing project”. Only six program such as expanding free highway measure to mother-children evacuees, are new out of 88 announced programs.  Health survey by the government and the right of evacuation which are mentioned in the Act were not included at all.

25 citizens’ groups including Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation jointly held the meeting in Tokyo to release urgent statement. The statement says that “the support target area is very narrow and only include one part of Fukushima. This will bring a further division between victims”, “the opinions from the victims and supporters organization are not reflected.”, “the health survey is limited only the current Fukushima prefecture resident survey and more detailed checkup and health check for the residents outside Fukushima are not mentioned. “

Tags:compensation, evacuation, litigation, news

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